Five County, from

"Another, and I am done. Sir, I beg you and these senators to believe that these are neither fancy nor exaggerated sketches. years ago a young man newly married came to Ohio. He and his wife were Seventh Day Baptists. The young girl had left father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all the dear friends of her childhood, to follow her young husband to Arkansas - to them the land of promise. The light of love sparkled in her bright, young eyes. The roses of health were upon her cheeks, and her silvery laugh was sweet music, of which her young husband never wearied. They purchased a little farm, and soon, by tireless industry and frugal thrift, their home blossomed like a rose in the wilderness. After a while a fair young babe came to them to brighten the sunshine and sweeten the bird songs. They were happy in each other's affection and their love for the little one. For them 'all things worked together for good;' for, in their humble, trusting way, they worshiped God and loved their fellow men.

The Ugly, Venomous Head of Persecution

"Two years ago the law under which their prosperity and happiness had had its growth was repealed! Accursed be the day which brought such a foul blot upon our State's fair fame! A change, sudden, cold, and blasting as an arctic storm, came over their lives, and pitilessly withered all their bright flowers of hope. Under this repeal, persecution lifted its ugly, venomous head. The hero of my sad story was observed by an envious, jealous neighbor, quietly working, as he believed God had commanded him, on Sunday. He was reported to that inquisitorial relic of barbarism, the grand jury — indicted, tried, convicted, and thrown into jail because his conscience would not let him pay the fine. Week after week dragged its slow length along. Day after day the young wife, with baby in her arms, watched at the gate for his coming, and like Tennyson's Marianna

"She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!""

"Then baby sickened and died; the light in the young wife's eyes faded out in tears; her silvery laugh changed to low, wailing sobs. Pale-faced Misery snatched the roses from her cheeks, and planted in their stead her own pallid hue. Sir, how can I go on? At length the cruel law was appeased and this inoffensive citizen (except that he had loved God and sought to obey Him) was released from prison and dragged his weary feet to the happy home he had left a few short weeks before.

Who can preserve the rights and liberties of a people when they shall be abandoned by themselves? Who shall keep watch in the temple when the watchmen sleep at their post? Who shall call upon the people to redeem their possessions and revive the republic when their own hands have deliberately and corruptly surrendered them to the oppressor and have built the prisons and dug the graves of their own friends? The dark picture, it is to be hoped, will never be applicable to the republic of America. And yet it affords a warning, which, like all the lessons of past experience, we are not permitted to disregard. America, free, happy, and enlightened as she is, must rest the preservation of her rights and liberties upon the virtue, independence, justice, and sagacity of the people. If either fail, the republic is gone.- Judge Joseph Story.

Suppose, instead of an overwhelming majority of Protestants' holding certain views as to Sunday (which was the fact when the Act of 1794 was passed), an equally preponderating majority of the Roman Catholic faith should exist in this commonwealth, and, in accordance with that majority, the representatives in the Legislature should in prevailing numbers be of the same religious persuasion; and suppose such a Legislature should pass a law forbidding the use of meats as food on Friday, out of deference to the religious views and sensibilities of the majority how could such legislation be held to be invalid if the Act of 1794 is sustained? -Argument of Judge James G. Gordon, in his decision declaring the Pennsylvania Sunday laws religious and unconstitutional, in Philadelphia, March 23, 1903.

Liberty is not a matter of grace; it is an inherent right; and history abounds in illustrations of the truth that real liberty is secure only where the government is powerless to invade it. There is as much, if not greater, need of limitations on the power of government in pure democracies as in monarchies.

There is no

despotism in history more cruel and merciless than the despotism of an unbridled majority.- Congressional Record, May 29, 1911, p. 1606.

He met his neighbors at the gate, bearing a coffin. He asked no question; his heart told him all. No, not all! He knew not - he never could know of her lonely hours, of her bitter tears, of the weary watching and waiting, of the appeals to God, that God for whom she had suffered so much, for help in the hour of her extremity, of baby's sickness and death. He could not know of these. But he went with them to the quiet country burial place and saw beside the open grave a little mound with dirt freshly heaped upon it, and then he knew that God had taken both his heart's idols and he was left alone. His grief was too deep for tears. With staring eyes he saw them lower the body of his young wife into the grave. He heard the clods rattle upon the coffin, and it seemed as if they were falling upon his heart. The work was done, and they left him with his dead; and then he threw himself down between the graves with an arm across each little mound, and the tears came in torrents and kept his heart from breaking. And then he sobbed his broken farewell to his darlings and left Arkansas forever — left it, sir, as hundreds of others are preparing to leave if this general assembly fails to restore to them the protection of their rights under the constitution, national and State.

66

Criminals for Daring to Worship God

On next Monday, at Malvern, six as honest, good, and virtuous citizens as live in Arkansas are to be tried as criminals for daring to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their own consciences, for exercising a right which this Government, under the Constitution, has no power to abridge.

"Sir, I plead, in the name of justice, in the name of our republican institutions, in the name of these inoffensive, God-fearing, God-serving people, our fellow citizens, and last, sir, in the name of Arkansas, I plead that this bill may pass, and this one foul blot be wiped from the escutcheon of our glorious commonwealth."

At the close of his address, a vote was taken, and to the credit of the legislature and the honor of the State, the Sunday law, with its accompanying horrors, was so changed as to prevent a recurrence of such persecutions.

But Senator Crockett was mistaken in thinking that Arkansas was alone in having upon her statute books laws making possible persecution for conscience' sake. Such laws exist in a number of States, and are demanded not only in every State but at the hands of the Congress of the United States.